Vanessa Roman Quoted in Of Counsel on Pandemic’s Impact on Entertainment Lawyers

Akin Gump entertainment partner Vanessa Roman has been quoted in the Of Counsel article “Entertainment Lawyers Adapt to Pandemic and Ever-Evolving Media Trends.” The article looks at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on attorneys who work in the entertainment industry.

Video streaming is one area, the article says, that has seen a big increase in activity, with many movie theaters and other venues still closed. With that spike in streaming, Of Counsel reports, there has been a corresponding surge in workload.

“People are still consuming mass amounts of content, maybe even more than ever before,” said Roman. “In the early months of the COVID [outbreak], we saw a huge uptick in the amount of work involved in streaming services, which has been a growing industry and more and more streaming services have launched. In the last year streaming has been a big driver for business.”

In fact, the article points out, new projects are increasingly being produced directly for streaming platforms as opposed to traditional broadcast or theatrical and cinematic distribution.

Looking ahead, Roman predicted an even busier environment. “We’ve been waiting for that bubble to burst,” she said. “While many films have gone into production, there are many others just waiting to go. There’s been so much development and pre-production work; we’re going to see the floodgates open.”